Education

While there are more Latino and minority students in prestigious universities such as Harvard, the same cannot be said of the universities’ faculty members. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Newsmakers/Getty)

Too few Latino faculty in Ivy League schools, say reports

While the diversity of students at prestigious universities has been increasing in recent years to reflect the nation’s changing demographics, the same cannot be said for the faculty who are teaching in the Ivy Leagues, as was reported today by Voxxi and previously in National Journal. For example, only three percent of the faculty at Harvard University is Latino, and similarly low numbers are found in other Ivy League universities, despite the fact that the number of Latinos in college-level teaching programs has almost doubled since the 1990s. Latinos now make up over 16 percent of the nation’s population.

Ivy League universities are taking steps to increase the numbers of Latino faculty members. Columbia University plans to invest 30 million dollars to hire more women and minority postdoctoral and faculty members, and the University of Pennsylvania is allocating 100 million over the next five years to hire and keep Latinos, women and other minorities. At Brown University, the university student newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald, had an article in early October reporting that the university’s new president plans to redouble efforts to hire more minority faculty. Brown University’s associate provost for academic development and diversity, Liza Cariaga-Lo, was quoted as saying diversity in prestigious research universities is an issue for many institutions, and many are competing for the same candidates as they seek to diversify their ranks.